


Clue Phone

by lalejandra



Category: The OC (TV)
Genre: M/M, Transformative Works Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-28
Updated: 2004-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-14 19:41:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16047230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/pseuds/lalejandra
Summary: It's better when they pretend.





	Clue Phone

The best thing ever was when Ryan pretended that Seth had never run away and that Theresa had never finally decided to have an abortion and that he wasn't dating Marissa.

Yeah, really the best thing ever was when Ryan pretended like he _never_ dated Marissa, like he and Seth had figured it out right from the beginning, like everything had fallen into place the way it was supposed to have right from the very beginning.

Which, okay, was kind of stupid because even if Ryan had known it all right from the start - and who was to say that he hadn't? - Seth'd had no clue until he was out in the middle of nowhere on a fucking catamaran, getting a sunburn on his dick from jerking off in the middle of the day and then falling asleep, and dreaming about Ryan.

Seth always dreamed about Ryan. That was the clue phone. It went like this: RING RING, IT'S FOR YOU, YOU FUCKING DUMBASS.

After four days of this, Seth turned the Summer Breeze around and went back to Newport and faced his parents, who were remarkably calm about the whole thing. Ryan, who was there, who had apparently come back two days after he'd left, explained that it was because Kirsten was drunk and Sandy was too worried about _her_ to be worried about his idiot of a son who just took off when things got too rough.

And Seth kind of just sat there, chocolate milk forgotten, intense desire for a shower forgotten, calling Summer forgotten, because, hello, that wasn't the Ryan he was expecting to come back to!

Seth saw it playing out like this: He would come back and call Ryan and since it had been less than two weeks, maybe Ryan hadn't even noticed that Seth was gone. And Ryan would come over, or Seth would drive to Chino (while Theresa wasn't there, of course), and he would comfort Ryan and be there for him and make him laugh and maybe bring him a mix cd. He would say tenderly, "I forgive you, I know you had to do what you thought was right," and Ryan would squint at him and put a hand over his - no, wait, Ryan would never touch him. Ryan would squint at him and say, "Yeah, man," gruffly and _Seth_ would reach out and - no, Seth wouldn't touch him either.

Okay, so maybe Seth was fantasizing a little. Maybe Ryan would grab him and kiss him and throw him down onto the table and give him a blow job. Maybe Ryan would bite his neck and lick his toes and then he'd let Seth suck on his skin all over.

Except he _didn't_. How was Seth supposed to comfort Ryan in his hour of need if Ryan didn't need anything and wasn't going througha crisis?

So Seth just leaned forward and said, "Ryan, man, I -"

And Ryan said, "Just shut up," and turned around and left, and it turned out that Ryan was living down the hall now, because Sandy had moved out to the pool house.

That was not how life was supposed to be.

But that night Seth felt like he had really come home. He thought about it while was lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling, freshly showered (three times) and cried on (twice by Mom, not at all by Dad) and glared at (steely eyed by Dad _and_ Ryan, which made Seth wonder if maybe Ryan was secretly his half-brother for real and not just pretend). That afternoon he'd ate a lot of fruit and some cookies and drank a gallon of milk, and then threw up in the bathtub, which was gross.

Ryan said, "Your mom's done a lot worse since you've been gone," and then cleaned it up silently while Seth burned with shame in the corner, rubbing his eyes and wishing he could disappear.

Seth rubbed his dick a little, which was still kind of sore, and thought about what would have happened if he hadn't puked, if Ryan had just come into the bathroom accidentally, not realizing that Seth was naked and in the shower, lathering his body with "ocean breeze" scented soap.

And then Ryan came into his room and Seth was kind of like, uh, what? Ryan stood there at the door and stared at him and Seth stayed really still, and Ryan must have thought he was sleeping because he turned to go - did a lot of guys Ryan knew sleep with their hands on their dicks? - and Seth sat up and said, "Wait! Don't -"

Ryan turned back and cocked and eyebrow and said, "Yeah?"

"Let's just - I mean - it's only been, like, ten days," said Seth. "Can't we -"

"Pretend like nothing happened?" Ryan leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest, and Seth got hard. He pulled the pillow from against his headboard into his lap, and Ryan rolled his eyes. "Seth -"

"Come on, Ryan," Seth pleaded.

Ryan moved closer to him, until he was standing above him, and Seth looked up. "Come on, Ryan," he said again, and was kind of embarrassed to realize that he sounded desperate.

"What about Summer?" asked Ryan.

"What?" asked Seth.

Ryan leaned forward. "What. About. Summer."

"What about her?" asked Seth, feeling more and more stupid by the minute.

"You're - forget it." And with that, Ryan turned to leave again and Seth grabbed his arm and realized that maybe he didn't know what he wanted but _Ryan_ obviously recognized what Seth was asking for. Maybe he could explain it. And use diagrams.

He pulled Ryan down onto the bed and their legs tangled together, and he pressed his lips against Ryan's, and knew he was clumsy and stupid, but Ryan moved above him, and pinned his wrists to the bed with one hand, and pinned Seth's hips to the bed with his own hips and Seth could feel Ryan's dick against him and it didn't feel _anything_ like what he'd imagined

"I thought I would be on top," panted Seth, and Ryan groaned.

"Just pretend," said Ryan, "that this is something else," and he reached down and pushed his hand into Seth's pajama pants and Seth's vision whited out a little and his head fell back and Ryan bit his neck.

And sometimes when it's been a particularly long day, Seth will go to Ryan's room, because it took a few days, but Seth realized that Ryan wasn't coming back. Ryan only wanted to pretend for a few minutes. Seth wants to pretend every night.

  



End file.
